Intel talks up its use of 256-bit and 512-bit FMACs compared with AMD’s 128-bit implementation of AVX. But AMD may have taken the wiser route here (it wins all the FPU benchmarks AT ran). Intel takes a 20 percent clock penalty compared with 256-bit AVX when running AVX-512. While higher efficiency should theoretically be able to still show significant AVX-512 performance improvements, they’re only going to happen with substantial performance tuning. Not all software vendors or buyers can afford that kind of work, but it’ll be critical for AVX-512 to be a success.